


What Happened On Planet Carpenter?

by Tmae_Analysis (Tmae)



Series: Mechquest Analysis & Theories [2]
Category: MechQuest (Video Game)
Genre: Analysis, Gen, Planet Carpenter is a Noodle Incident but this is still what I think happened, bc it's pretty much just an explanation of a headcanon, but heyho past me tagged it as a theory so A THEORY IT IS, theory, this is SO OLD and barely counts as a theory by my present standards, tumblr crosspost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2020-01-31 08:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18587836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tmae/pseuds/Tmae_Analysis
Summary: A potential explanation for what exactlydidhappen all those years ago on Planet Carpenter





	What Happened On Planet Carpenter?

**Author's Note:**

> This has literally just been copied-and-pasted from the original tumblr post

You know [that post](https://www.tumblr.com/edit/tmae3114.tumblr.com/post/132176788069/i-have-a-headcanon-about-what-happened-on-planet) I made about a headcanon I had about what happened on Planet Carpenter?

Okay, so, the thing about Planet Carpenter is that it’s mentioned all of twice.

> **Artix:** Not since that thing on **Planet Carpenter** …  
>  **Nurse Helia:** Oh great. You had to bring that up, didn’t you!
> 
>  **Helia:** This is classic you! You’re always rushing into battle without thinking.  
>  **Helia:** Is this going to be like **Planet Carpenter** all over again?  
>  **Artix:** This is NOTHING like **Carpenter**. I have done this before!  
>  **Artix:** If there was truly another option, I would take it, but this is how it must be!

This is _incredibly_ little information to go on, but I think I might have a fairly decent idea on something that _could_ have happened. While I don’t think it would actually get mentioned in canon (or actually be anywhere near whatever the actual canon thing is) I do like the idea itself and want to share it.

Ready?

I think Artix _died._

* * *

(That was quite the hook to get you to click ‘keep reading’, wasn’t it?)

But I _am_ being serious. While he definitely didn’t _die_ die, since he’s still around at the time of the game and is very clearly not undead (plus there’s the whole blood type thing and stuff), I think that, for at least a time, he was _clinically_ dead.

Given Helia’s comment of “always rushing into battle without thinking,” and the fact that Artix’s states that Helia was his squire for a time, which is followed by a lot of “a long time ago”s on both ends, culminating in the first mention of Planet Carpenter, here’s the basic rundown of what I think happened:

Artix and Helia were on some sort of mission to Carpenter and something went wrong, which ended in battle. Artix didn’t really think things through and charged into the fray without a second thought.

At some point, he got hit with an energy weapon of some kind, possibly at the of the battle or possibly with a delayed effect, which induced cardiac arrest.

Helia was likely already trained in at least emergency first aid at this point, and had to administer CPR until a defib arrived. Since the mission there went so wrong and so on, it takes a while for the defib to arrive. And then it takes multiple shocks from it to gets Artix’s heart started again. Helia likely also had to use a lot of her healing magic to save him.

(The time period that I’m thinking is seven minutes, but it would probably be anywhere from five to fifteen minutes. Survival chances during clinical death _plummet_ after twenty minutes)

Afterwards, once they’ve both recovered from the battle and so on, Artix is a little bit… too _flippant_ about his “death” for Helia’s liking.  
I reckon he’d act that way about it because, as an adult anyways, he strikes me as the type to use humour to deal with and come to terms with things - for example, how AQW Artix thinks he’s been turned undead in the Doomwood saga, one of the first things he says is “Man, I would’ve thought dying would take away this headache,” - and in general he seems to move on from things by not letting them fester. MQ!Artix is pre-reset DF!Artix and DF!Artix mentions that when he went to train with the Paladin Order “[He] put all thoughts of the village behind and looked forward to [his] new life.”  
The general thought process I’ve got for MQ!Artix’s attitude towards his near-death on Carpenter is that “It didn’t kill me, so I’m not going to dwell on it. It happened, it’s over, let the past be the past,”. He’d notice Helia dwelling on it afterwards and try to make some jokes to let her know that he’s fine and that she should let it go too.

This plan backfires _spectacularly._

Helia is also, at this point, coming to the realisation that she doesn’t much like being in the field. And here’s her friend - because literally everything about them heavily implies that they are friends who had a severe falling out - _joking_ about almost dying.

The key thing here is that Helia wasn’t just _there_ , didn’t just watch it happen, she was _actively trying to prevent it happening._ She was kneeling over his body, desperately running through chest compressions while all the while _feeling no heartbeat._

I’m trained in CPR, and I can tell you that it’s hard enough on a _dummy_ , let along the psycological parts of doing _on a human being._ Helia may have even broken some of Artix’s ribs doing that CPR.

Artix would’ve been unconscious while this was happening. Yes, he’s the one it happened to, but he has a vastly different perspective over the incident to Helia.

So what you have is a medic realises she doesn’t like the field after almost watching a friend die, and said friend _joking about it._ From Artix’s perspective, he’s trying to help. From Helia’s, he’s being _really, really flippant_ and she probably thinks he’s gonna end up getting it happen to him _again_ because he’s _so completely reckless._

This culminates in a massive fight between the two of them that ends with Helia resigning as his squire and going off to train to be a nurse. They see each other occasionally throughout the years, but don’t talk to each other properly until Romero happens.

So. Yeah. That’s my theory on What Happened On Planet Carpenter. Which I’ve probably put way too much thought into.

**Author's Note:**

> and a relevant comment I made in the tags in the original  
>  _"#also due to Artix and Helia's combined ''really long time ago''s #I reckon Carpenter occured somewhere in the vicinity of a decade prior to the game"_


End file.
